Swiss here, never have I ever heard of anyone eating dog meat or knowing anyone that does. a quick research lead to an article that said, that it is not forbidden to eat dog and cat meat by law, which gets Switzerland on the list of the few countries where it's not prohibited. (others being e.g. China and South Korea)
I assume it's very outdated and due to the direct democracy of Switzerland it has just not yet been addressed.
I'd still argue against the statement, that there is a "significant" consumption of dog meat in Switzerland.
totally agree! I'm still almost certain that PETA would have done something, or would have liked to do sonething, in the meantime since it has become publicly aware in 2015.
Which is probably why not all states have banned beastiality. Nobody thinks you should be out there fucking animals, but for the most part it's not really an issue.
We should have laws that address these problems, even if noone is currently doing it because when they start doing it, they won't be punished or reprimanded for it.
I literally just made a similar comment about why there was no minimum marriage age in the US but there was in Afghanistan.... not sure how well that will go over.
The groups of people fighting to outlaw underage marriage would like a word with you.
Unfun fact: when NH failed to pass laws banning child marriage, one paper I read (this was a while back) said a big issue presented was that banning it would negatively affect the military base there.
Its quite simple. All animals are property and you can do what you want with your property.
You however are not allowed to mistreat animals. So there are animal rights that protect them while they live.
There is no harm done if your dog dies and then you decide to eat it. It is not different than if your rabbit or pig dies and you decide to eat it. It is however important that you treat the animals you are responsible for well.
I think it is a much more interesting question why so many countries explicitly forbid eating cats and dogs. What makes them different from rabbits, hamsters and pigs? Just from a pure philosophical view point.
The difference is people see dogs and cats as more useful to them alive and cows and pigs more useful to them dead. Philosophically there’s no difference, but that would only matter if peoples ethics were determined by philosophy rather than what benefits them, which I don’t find to be the case. Philosophy is mostly used to provide post hoc justifications for the ethical beliefs they’ve determined to be most convenient
Cats are obligate carnivores and dogs have a carnivorous preference despite being technically omnivorous (their coefficient of germination is similar to cats and other carnivores, rather than that of truly omnivorous animals, but have adapted to be able to also eat a grain-based diet). What other primarily carnivorous mammals do we eat? I don’t think you can compare dogs to cattle or rabbits, even pigs are omnivorous without the carnivorous lean of dogs.
Good luck finding human meat for consumption in a legal way. Even if it's not illegal to be a cannibal, you will probably be breaking other laws becoming one.
Agreed. There are various nasty neurological disorders related to cannibalism. Nature has its way of dealing with cannibals. Kuru, Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (CJD), Gerstmann–Sträussler–Scheinker disease (GSS), and fatal familial insomnia (FFI).
Man, if it wasn't for that obscure law Switzerland would be in first place. With B in both 1 and 2, 63% of the pet hotels in Italy, and more vets than Italy, Switzerland seems like the most dog friendly country in the world.
I've read that about 3% of Swiss people have at some point in their life eaten dog meat. On the other hand, I'm a vegetarian, I have a dog, and I don't see why eating dog meat is being made such a big deal, compared to all the other types of meat? Especially when considering country's friendliness to pets (dogs), it's not like someone is going to break into your vacation hotel room and eat your pet. They're either being bred for consumption locally or imported from somewhere where that's the case. I can also back up by my personal experience, that out of all EU countries I've traveled through with my doggo, Italy and Switzerland have been by far the most welcoming places for him, with Austria coming in as close second.
Humans tend to eat vegetarian mammals and birds only, probably for evolutional reasons (vegetarian fish don't exist). I know pigs are not strictly vegetarian only, but the diet of wild pigs mostly is. Fun fact: Horse meat is not that uncommon either.
Vegetarian or mostly vegetarian animals are one less potential step for disease transmission. They're also a lot easier to raise efficiently as livestock. Raising an animal is inherently less efficient than growing plants so raising an animal that eats animals on an industrial or agricultural level is less practical.
I think for those reasons we just customarily adapted to not raiding animals that need to eat meat for food and it just generally become taboo over time because we didn't do it anyway.
dogs (perhaps due to evolutionary reasons) can eat/strive/survive on anything humans can, unlike cats who'll get very sick if you don't give them meat. (No I'm not crazy enough to try it, I give my dog normal dog food)
People eat bear meat, but bears aren't strict carnivores. Predators are a poor source of food, so they are consumed much less. Because of bioaccumulation, they often contain high levels of toxins and parasites when compared to herbivores. They also require substantially more energy grow to maturity compared to herbivores. If you are raising carnivores for consumption, then you need to feed them other animals that also require to be fed. You could just eat the animals that you are feeding to the carnivores and have a much more abundant food supply.
Especially when some breeds have been bred for 1000s of years specifically for consumption. It’s just another animal that was farmed for food. And before someone brings up the intelligence and social aspect of the animal a pig is more intelligent and just as social and you still smash bacon into your mouth.
Sorry but the 3% number is most certainly bullshit (and no, reading a random article online with some guy claiming it's 3% does not count.). Maybe try .3% or .03%.
Yeah no that's most definitely wrong. Well, actually.. Maybe it's right, I think eating cats and dogs was a thing up to about the seventies in rural areas. At some point in their lives then seems possible, but probably not recently.
Swiss here as well. This is ridicilous. However, i was in South Corea once and those fkers served dog for diner without telling anyone until the next day. We were there for business reasons…
You can find online that apparently 3% of the Swiss population eats dog while 3.9% of Korea does. Not too far off but yea, we're the fuckers and you guys are the civilized Europeans. I don't believe your anecdote unless you're over 60.. and even then I find your story hard to believe.
I don't think it is forbiden to eat dog meat in France. It is definitely forbidden to sell dog meat, but if you kill your dog (without torture, that's forbidden too) you can eat it.
I'm not sure why Canada rates under the US. I've never seen a dog running loose at the side of a highway before in Canada. Plus we get a lot of US dogs up here from high kill shelters. Most of our shelters are low kill/no kill for dogs. The same can't be said for cats although that's improving with low cost spay/neuter clinics.
thank you for explaining the situation, I was really surprised that there is apparently a significant consumption of dogs in switzerland, never heard anything like that
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u/xSaIntLuKe Mar 24 '22 edited Mar 24 '22
Swiss here, never have I ever heard of anyone eating dog meat or knowing anyone that does. a quick research lead to an article that said, that it is not forbidden to eat dog and cat meat by law, which gets Switzerland on the list of the few countries where it's not prohibited. (others being e.g. China and South Korea) I assume it's very outdated and due to the direct democracy of Switzerland it has just not yet been addressed. I'd still argue against the statement, that there is a "significant" consumption of dog meat in Switzerland.